Understanding the ins and outs of using digital lead generation funnels can help fund managers attract more targeted and enduring investors.

The real estate investment landscape has evolved dramatically since contacts were stored and managed in Rolodexes. As a forward-thinking professional in the real estate investment domain, you recognize that attracting new capital is no longer confined to traditional networking.

The modern investor relations landscape demands a blend of innovative technology and savvy marketing—ingredients essential for any sector’s growth and vitality. Investor lead generation funnels have emerged as a useful tool for investor engagement and capital acquisition, for example.

Let’s explore the practicalities of investor funnels and their pivotal role in expanding your fund, securing investor interest, and fostering enduring partnerships.

Setting the Legal Stage

A landmark shift occurred with the introduction of the JOBS Act of 2012, specifically Regulation D 506(c), which facilitated general solicitation and paved the way for investor lead generation funnels. This milestone made it legally compliant to tap into the vast potential of digital marketing platforms like Meta.

The Silver Lining

Recent global economic and health crises have accelerated the consumer shift toward technological solutions in numerous aspects of daily life. The realm of online investing, once met with skepticism, now thrives as a new norm. The “working from home” movement has also resulted in more investors being comfortable “investing from home.” The modern investor’s comfort with digital platforms has significantly increased, fostering a flourishing marketplace for investor funnels.

Why Meta Stands Out

In the bustling digital realm that is bursting at the seams with new social platforms, why select Meta for investor lead generation funnels? The rationale is that it’s multifaceted and thoroughly tested.

The Original Pioneer. As a trailblazer in the social networking world, Meta possesses a wealth of data harvested from billions of user interactions. At least 70% of all internet users have an active account on one of the three Meta platforms, providing a vast pool of data that is a goldmine for targeting potential investors.

Demographics. Although most social platforms have their sights set on attracting younger users, Meta has steadfastly held onto its older demographics—who also represent substantial purchasing power. According to a Pew Research 2021 report on social media, 73% of Americans ages 50 to 64 use Facebook, and half of those 65 and older say they use the site—making Facebook the most used platform among this older population.

Custom Audiences. Meta’s native targeting limitations make it difficult and expensive to advertise to high-net-worth audiences. However, by uploading your own custom data sets based on high net worth, you can harness the platform’s powerful algorithm to pinpoint target your desired audience. Overcoming this limitation helps focus your advertising budget on prospects that match your investor avatar.

Creative Control. Your advertising campaign should reflect your unique brand, conveying your value proposition to investors in ways that are easy to understand and generate curiosity. Meta advertising helps you communicate your story with custom videos (e.g., commercials) and graphics (e.g., tombstones) in a way that other tools like Google Ads, LinkedIn messaging, and cold outreach cannot.

Conversion Tracking. Meta’s conversion-tracking technology is invaluable to a long-term capital raising strategy. Integrate conversion tracking into your sales funnel to target prospects that emulate your most successful leads. This process enables continuous and automatic refinement of ad delivery and lead quality.

Crafting a Magnetic Advertising Campaign

The most successful investor funnels will come from those that combine innovative digital marketing strategies with your established expertise in investor relations and fund management. This involves being actively involved in the initial strategy, relentless pursuit of data, continuous updates to advertising creative and copy, and an airtight lead follow-up sequence. Use a data driven approach to increase conversion rates at each stage, optimizing your inbound investor interest (and capital).

Multichannel Outreach

Multichannel outreach allows you to communicate with your new leads where it’s most convenient for your prospects. Start off with at least two channels (e.g., text messaging and email). Test and measure the results from adding in new channels (e.g., ringless voicemail, Facebook Messenger, Instagram DMs, WhatsApp messages, and live chat).

Optimizing Lead Follow-Up

Core to the success of any investor funnel is your post-engagement strategy—everything that happens after leads convert on your advertisement. The MIT Lead Response Management Study delivers a sobering statistic: Your odds of contacting a lead increase a hundredfold if you reach out to them within five minutes of their initial conversion as opposed to 30 minutes. This statistic underscores the necessity of rapid response in order to maintain the interest of potential leads.

Artificial Intelligence Is Your Ally

Previously, fund managers had to hire sales development representatives to support their main closers with tasks such as nurturing prospects and scheduling meetings. Now, by leveraging conversational AI, you can effortlessly and immediately nurture your investor leads, positioning your brand as responsive and reliable. By building or hiring an AI sales assistant, you can increase investor lead conversion rates compared to a traditional sales development representative, while also saving time, money, and management headaches. There are several providers for AI sales assistants geared toward lenders/originations, including InvesTechs.

Reporting Is a Requirement

Investor lead generation funnels are a long-term strategy to generate interest, build relationships, and grow your investor base. Using them requires patience and an adequate advertising budget. This considerable investment demands robust reporting to ensure your decisions are based on accurate, real-time and actionable data.

What to Measure

The world of advertising is full of buzzwords, acronyms, and fancy phrases vendors use to validate their retainers. Ultimately, your success comes down to a handful of key metrics, which will seem like common sense to you; however, they’re not what advertisers are taught to look for. Maximize the ROI of your investor funnel by staying focused on the metrics that matter.

Cost Per Qualified Lead. This initial metric establishes the baseline of your advertising efficiency. Your cost per qualified lead can range anywhere from $15-$50 and bear results. Be sure to take a long-term approach by prioritizing lead quality over quantity. Optimizing your campaigns simply for cost per lead often results in low quality leads, which are unlikely to convert, wasting your ad budget and time.

Cost Per Meeting Scheduled. The number of meetings scheduled is a key indicator of investor relations activity levels. When you have honed into your desired cost per meeting, the next step is to strategically increase your advertising budget to fill your calendar with as many qualified investor leads as possible.

Meeting Attendance Rate. Having a schedule full of meetings is beneficial, but your organization loses valuable time and resources when leads fail to attend. Although it’s inevitable that some leads will miss their meetings, you can mitigate this with prompt and consistent confirmations and reminders. Simply implementing SMS reminders will substantially boost the likelihood of your investor leads showing up to their meetings.

Sales Cycle. Even if your investor leads are well-qualified, they are often new to your company’s offerings, and they will take extra time for due diligence or await an opportune moment. Consequently, your sales cycle on these leads—spanning from initial contact to receiving capital—can often range from three to six months. By tracking the duration required to convert a lead into an investor and strategically shortening this period, you can significantly enhance your return on investment.

Cost Per Investor. The primary goal of your reporting strategy is pinpointing your cost per investor, which in turn informs your true cost of capital. When you achieve a stable and predictable cost per investor, you’re then in a position to strategically scale your advertising budget and sales team to meet your capital-raising objectives with confidence. Your sales team’s ability to close investor leads will have the most impact on your cost per investor.

When put into a spreadsheet, it’s clear that minor adjustments to these KPIs can create substantial value downstream. For example, cutting your cost per qualified lead by 10%, or boosting your meeting attendance by 5%, can lead to a significantly larger positive shift in your cost per investor. When you calculate the ROI on repeat investors generated from your investor funnel, be sure you’re sitting down.

Building Your Capital Raising Machine

Adopting investor lead generation funnels isn’t merely about keeping pace—it’s about setting the pace, establishing thought leadership, and fostering connections that transcend traditional limitations. Your expertise in real estate investment, paired with the powerful digital tools, has the potential to grow an enduring investor base. As the real estate landscape continues to evolve, those who leverage investor funnels will find themselves at the forefront of raising capital online—not only as participants but as architects of its transformation.